In the evening, the sunlight in the black maple forest becomes sparse and weak, blocked by the dense branches and leaves. But the huge shadow of the floating island is cast on the wilderness outside the woods, and there is a shining strip of light two fingers wide from the maple forest when viewed from high in the sky. Mysterious creatures in dark robes are scattered on horses in the golden wheat-scented river. Their search was neither formation nor organized, and was as messy as the rocks outcropping the river in the shallow water.
Roma Penelope dug out a large bush of wheat, but bumped into a maple tree that had not been cut down during last year's flower moon.
The wheat fields and sunflowers couldn't block her for any time, and it took a lot of effort for her to get through the gap between them. Fortunately, her head of fluffy blond hair like a lion's mane added a lot of camouflage to her hidden actions, allowing her to successfully slip out of the floating island under the eyes of the astrologer apprentices.
An unprecedented good opportunity appeared before her: Sabina was copying information in the library, and her tutor Larson went to visit his old friend. No one in the entire Astrology Tower paid attention to her whereabouts. If such an opportunity is missed, she said to herself, I will regret it for two whole months, and will not forget it until the wheat harvest of the next year.
It took most of the time to prepare, because she didn't know what she would need after going out alone. Weapons are of course necessary, as is the universal Abbey gold coin. In addition, there are a pair of gloves, a bag of chili powder, two pointed silver nails, an orange half-length cloak, a bag of thumb cakes, a pot of refreshing potion to relieve the heat, as well as Sabine and her Your own snowflake ring.
Each tower apprentice will receive a ring. Sabina is about to light the fire, but that will come after me. Roma thought as she stole it. Before she became a mystery, she had to use the ring to perform magic, and now the future Miss Astrologer must be furious. It looked silly to have the ring on the same hand, so she wore Sabine's and put her own in her leather pocket.
It is a pity that instructor Larsen did not forget to wear his ring close to his body this time. Roma reached a deal with the alchemy golem who was guarding the door, went into his bedroom and rummaged around for a while, but could not find the Night Whispering Ring that belonged to the great astrologer. But if it succeeds, the number of people searching for her will increase several times.
However, even if he escaped from Croita secretly, to be fair, Roma didn't hate it here. Although she was born in an orc tent on the breadland prairie. Roma Penelope was the child who monopolized her mother's belly. She was strong and bold. Her two twin brothers later almost died. She inherited the lion's wildness, agility, curiosity... a series of talents that brought trouble to people, and she did make good use of these talents. But what puzzles classmate Sabina is that Roma Penelope always escapes punishment.
But Roma grew up in Croita, and looking at the constellation drawings was far more intimate than the grassland. Sabine also didn't like having her luxuriant hair pulled and held on. All in all, this kind of life was actually a bit beyond expectations. She was sure that when her mother sent her to the island in the sky, she never expected such generous and free treatment.
Of course, this is inseparable from her lack of talent as an astrologer. The astrologers of the Sky Tower are not happy to be disturbed when they are obsessed with the stars, and they are not happy to have a half-hearted person around them. So Roma Penelope luckily avoided the test of the astrologer's apprentice and was thrown directly into Larson's hands to eat and drink - to be trained as a future messenger.
She has not embarked on the path of an astrologer, so no one cares about her origins - orcs or other alien races. The Tower of Sky does not reject it - nor does it expect anything from her.
It couldn't be considered safe here, so she continued to escape deep into the black maple forest, until she lost her last bit of strength. Fatigue made Roma stop. She sat leaning against a log among a pile of leaves and thick roots. She drank a whole pot of concentration potion, then opened the backpack behind her and rummaged around.
"Who took my compass?" the little lion head muttered. She couldn't remember where she put the compass. The dagger and bow and arrows were in their place, and she couldn't believe she had lost the compass that gave her direction. "Oops..." She emptied her backpack and realized she might have forgotten to take it out.
The little lion head didn't want to admit that her adventure was over before it even started. She threw away her backpack, and the laces of the chili powder were opened, scattering colorful round grains all over the ground. She only glanced at it before sitting back, holding her head and wailing:
"Forgive me, who packed so many pansy seeds for me?"
…
"You don't need to give away all the magic seeds. If you sell them, you can get a lot of gold coins back." Larsen drank the black tea, which was indeed cold.
He crossed his legs and leaned on the sofa, watching two rabbits hurriedly mending a coat. One is responsible for threading, and the other is busy sewing needles. It was dimly lit in the living room, and the one responsible for stitches always jumped up suddenly and licked his furry paws with his tongue.
"It's no use if you're here to tell me." Eze was pruning a plant with green flowers on a wooden pole. When the auxiliary branches were trimmed, he used tweezers to remove the stigmas that overhang the petals. "Just don't waste my tea before it's too late."
"In order to waste your tea, I can't just leave." Larsen Gallagher watched the rabbit jump up again. "How does it feel to be a gardener again? I remember when you saw your internship assignment list, your face looked exactly like 'Roaring Dupont.'"
"Dupont?"
"Oh, he recently had a sculpture exhibition at the Vanassen Pavilion. If you come back two days earlier, you can catch it."
"If I had been two days earlier, I wouldn't have come back."
Larson picked up the poor rabbit and rubbed its ears, leaving its companion alone and sewing in despair. "You can't blame me." He didn't know who to tell. "I can't control the whereabouts of the White Envoy. I informed you as soon as he passed through the Star Gap."
"Who broke the portal? Could it be my apprentice?" Eze asked.
"...This was an accident." Larsen coughed and stopped continuing the topic. "Let's get down to business, Ez, how's your fire going?"
"Stronger than apprentices, weaker than ring level."
Ezz put down the tweezers and sat down on the sofa. "It's no problem to deal with simple plants, and forest blessing can be barely effective. Only natural magic... To be honest, I can't use it in the City of Floating Clouds."
"This will have little effect on your magic seeds."
"Blessing of the Forest makes me immune to attacks, man, but I can't control them. Do you know how hard it is to cram them into the same box? It's like two things in one pot. These idiots either like Soil and water either prefer pure gaseous sulfur, and even Heather, there are those who require subzero freezing! In short, no one is obedient."
His friend gasped. "It's a good thing I'm not a druid."
"So if I keep them, I will only end up being tortured and going crazy." Eze said, "Whoever is willing to deal with them, I really want them. There are few material shops in the Floating Cloud City that buy magic plants. I want to exchange them for gold coins. Then I have to be the first one.”
"Don't be so discouraged. I'll take care of your business."
"Get away, great astrologer. People will think you're charging me for advertising."
"Not actually."
"So you're going to put out a story about this?"
They laughed together.
"Is your little apprentice graduating soon?" Eds Haynes said. "She came to visit me a few days ago, hoping to get help. Poor kid, I hope she doesn't have any troublesome blood."
Larsen sighed: "Sabina is pretty good, the point is Roma. Our Miss Penelope probably has the pedigree to get in the way of others. Breaking the observation ball is just one of the many bad things she did. , once she even used my ring to break into the tower meeting room, shocking Sidney."
"Sir Sidney?"
"It's that old scholar who wants to kill people, Osvid Sidney, the 'Silver Cross'. I always wonder if he is a spy from the School of Silence."
There was no reason for Eze not to know this great astrologer. His classmate Larsen and he had studied in the tower. But in the end, he chose to go out to garrison, while Larson decided to stay in the Floating Cloud City to teach apprentices. The latter crossed the path of death only a few years ago. "Before I graduated, he still lived in the attic of the library." Except for the White Envoy who needed to patrol the vassal country, the rest of the great astrologers basically observed Knox in the tower.
"Now he has moved to another place, right across from the meeting hall. Sometimes when my teacher passes by there, he will complain that his steps are too heavy."
"I guess Lord Demosis would rather fly down than take the stairs again," Eds quipped. "Your little apprentice is so courageous. He must be obedient in front of Sir Sidney, right?"
"She listens more to Ronald Zachary, the Lion. You know the surname Penelope is very uncommon among humans. Her mother sent her to the Astrology Tower mainly for him."
"And they gave her to you."
"It won't be easy to say no to her. The other great astrologers have said no, which is why Miss Penelope is so lawless. Eastman's viewing globe is broken, and I'm going to ask Sabine to fix it. Now. We couldn't receive any news from Eastman, and even the observations were very vague. Without coordinates, I set the location at the last place where the star gap opened."
"I still doubt how he did it." Haynes asked: "The White Envoy holds the key to the Star Gap in the entire Knox?"
"He is the "commander". " Larson admitted.
"Let the White Envoy complete the task for me. I can guarantee that you great astrologers will not receive this kind of treatment." Eze recalled his experience in Yotsuba City. He rubbed his hands and felt that the temperature seemed a little low. "Calculate the time, the observation ball should be repaired." The Bai Zhishi is about to return.
"It has been repaired a long time ago. It's just that the people in the maintenance department unanimously refused to hand it over to me for safekeeping, and their attitude was rude - if the 'Eye of Iron' can't even see its own apprentice, no one will trust it. The valuables were placed in his hands. Lo and behold, the little madman lived up to his reputation."
When Larsen talks about Roma, she feels more exhausted than if she had been in the astronomy room for a week. "I'm literally running out of words. Sabine is trying to use it and hopefully the kid will be a little gentler."
“Sabina is very talented,” Eads said.
"My teacher said the same thing. She is always careful and cautious. But the most outstanding thing is a keen intuition. She seems to be born with the ability to capture tiny details, which is a rare advantage for observers. .”
"Isn't that right? An astrologer, a messenger. Your apprentice is going to dominate the tower."
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